Phone in programme on FM Radio taps passion of Youth for achieving Zero HIV.

[RAJESH KUMAR SOOD]

Red Ribbon Clubs gear up for upcoming World AIDS Campaign.

Every day 2400 young people aged 15 to 24 are infected with HIV around the globe, which represents 40% of all new infections among adults. “Getting to Zero” the theme of World AIDS Campaign echoes the UNAIDS vision of achieving “Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths.” Under this the key goal is to halve new infections among youth by 2015 for which the AIDS control programme aims to strengthen the meaningful participation of young people.

I the run up to the Campaign, a live discussion on FM radio is being conducted every Wednesday at AIR Dharamshala to enable young people to connect with their peers, plan strategy and maximize their ability to navigate World AIDS Campaign 2012 successfully. The Youth Phone-in is among the main networking space for young people, and sharing a collective passion about achieving this goal of “Getting to Zero”.

“Young people bring a fresh perspective to the HIV response, fuelled by passion and creativity,” said Dr RK Sood, DAPO Kangra. “We are innovators and change-makers, and without our meaningful involvement, we will never be able to achieve our targets of zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths,” he added.

The phone in talk show will break the silence and taboo and open discussion to stimulate enabling environment for the programme and will supplement the facebook social media platform and interpersonal communication approach.

CMO Kangra Dr SP Singh added that “We want to empower young people”. The upcoming campaign event offers the possibility to share high quality information on the latest trends in the epidemic along with an examination of youth-specific issues, challenges and needs. “HIV Is Still Here” reflects the need for everyone to talk with family and friends about HIV.  We should not be complacent “It is important to update our knowledge about HIV because a lot has changed over the past 30 years.

Under the Skills-based training on HIV over 200 youth were trained this year. The trained youth will become role models among the youth and further communicate with their peers to promote informed & responsible choices, setting one boundaries, gender sensitivity, be Bold” to talk about HIV AIDS & say “NO” to negative peer pressures & thus lead the HIV prevention revolution.

Earlier in the year, youth of Kangra participated in UNAIDS “CrowdOutAIDS” — a youth-led policy project that used social media tools and crowdsourcing technology to enable young people from around the world to develop a set of recommendations for the UNAIDS Secretariat to work more effectively with young people in the AIDS response.

 

 

[RAJESH KUMAR SOOD]

Interesting observations - the first programme we got calls from two red ribbon clubs, they lacked focus in discussion but the dialogue led to concrete planning of future action.

Outcomes included decision regd a Padyatra (walkthon) with one club on HIV theme and integration of HIV prevention in annual day events in the other one.  

Moreover, we also learnt later that many clubs were not clear as the massage conveyed by counselors to the clubs was incomplete. Many of the other clubs lacked clarity on what they were supposed to discuss. Other felt that they had not yet conducted any specific activity this year yet - so they had nothing to share. Further telephonic discussion and clarification that plans, ideas can be shared, in addition to queries  and many other clubs will be participating next wednesday. The expected outcomes include Stimulation, Actvitation, collective learning. 

However, we are realistic and the competing proprieties of youth, incl..attraction, love and academics, fashion. Many will have limited commitment and intend to do toeknism, however something is better than nothing and we will continue to engage them till a more enabling environment is created.  

We will be strenghtning out internal team communication stragegy and skills, so that the communication gap is bridged.